Dark Downeast - The Disappearance of Audrey Groat (Vermont)

Episode Date: February 8, 2024

It has been more than three decades since the day 41-year-old Audrey Groat left her Northfield, Vermont home supposedly for an afternoon of shopping only to vanish without a trace. The initial search for the missing mother had just a few details to go on, but not even those details can really be trusted. The most important question still lingers: What really happened on that August afternoon in 1993? If you have any information relating to the disappearance of Audrey Groat, please contact Vermont State Police Lieutenant John MacCallum at [e-mail] or you can submit an anonymous tip by texting VTIPS to 274637. View source material and photos for this episode at darkdowneast.com/audreygroat Dark Downeast is an audiochuck and Kylie Media production hosted by Kylie Low.Follow @darkdowneast on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTokTo suggest a case visit darkdowneast.com/submit-case

It has been more than three decades since the day 41-year-old Audrey Grote left her Northfield, Vermont home, supposedly for an afternoon of shopping, only to vanish without a trace. The initial search for the missing mother had just a few details to go on, but not even those details can really be trusted. The most important question still lingers. What really happened on that August afternoon in 1993? I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is the case of Audrey Grote on Dark Down East. Audrey Grote was a dedicated, adoring mother, and a busy one too. She had six daughters with about an eight-year gap between the oldest and youngest, and four of the youngest lived at home with her. Audrey and her husband of 11 years, James Cody, divorced in 1983, and he moved out of state, so times were tough and money was tight as a single mom, but she did everything she could to make a comfortable life for her family.

According to Peter Hirshfield's reporting for the Times-Argus, Audrey and the girls were living in a small Northfield, Vermont apartment in 1990 when she presented an idea. She had a small plot of land on Holstrom Road, a more rural part of the same town, and Audrey suggested they build a house of their own. The girls were all in on the plan, and together they began construction that very summer. One of Audrey's daughters later reflected on their home with pride. Quote,

Mom and us girls built it. It was pretty cool. End quote. Whenever there was time and money to spare, Audrey was working away on the house. Deborah Derby writes for the Rutland Herald that Audrey referred to it as a pioneer project. It didn't have electricity for about eight months, and it never had running water while Audrey lived there. The single lofted bedroom that was open to the rest of the house made privacy and personal space a rare commodity, but it meant that they all got to spend a lot of

time together too. Audrey had been working at Community Products in Montpelier, a candy manufacturer once responsible for the popular cashew and Brazil nut treat called Rainforest Crunch. That's where she met a man named Patrick Jarvis. He moved back to Vermont from South Carolina and started working at Community Products sometime in 1992. There's not a lot of information in the source material about how Patrick and Audrey met or how they became friends, but we can assume they had seen each other around the water cooler, so to speak, and hit it off from there. Some sources refer to Patrick as Audrey's boyfriend, while the majority say he was just a friend.

But according to reporting in the Rutland Herald, their relationship developed over the course of a year, both in and out of work. Audrey eventually introduced Patrick to her daughters, and they all went camping and boating at the Wrightsville Reservoir together. Patrick helped Audrey with some home renovations too, like hanging sheetrock and installing a shower stall. In 1993, life threw Audrey a curveball when she got laid off. So that summer, she started searching for a new job to provide for her family, all while keeping up with projects at the house and getting the girls ready to go back to school that fall. But one afternoon that August, Audrey put everything on pause in favor of some different plans. On August 21st, 1993, Audrey left her house in Northfield reportedly to do some shopping in Burlington with Patrick Jarvis. As she walked out

the door that afternoon, leaving her younger kids in the care of a babysitter, she promised to be back by 6.30 the latest. She dropped another of her daughters off at a friend's house a few towns over in Middlesex around 2 o'clock, 2.15-ish, and then drove to a commuter lot off Interstate 89 in Montpelier, where she met up with Patrick to carpool to the University Mall together. She parked her Chevrolet S10 pickup truck in the lot and hopped in to Patrick's beige Ford Escort. Then off they went. Audrey should have been home that night, by 6.30, just like she promised.

But hours ticked by, and she never walked back through the front door. Diane Derby reports for the Rutland Herald that one of Audrey's daughters tried calling Patrick's apartment to see if he knew where Audrey was, but his roommate said Patrick wasn't there and stopped answering the phone after her third call. The next morning, when Audrey failed to pick up her daughter at the friend's house and she hadn't called to let anyone know where she was or when she'd be back, the worry really set in. The daughters and their babysitter tried calling Audrey's friends,

and the friends started calling each other. No one had seen or heard from Audrey since she left for that supposed shopping trip. And they still couldn't track down Patrick Jarvis. Something definitely wasn't right, and so they called local police to file a missing persons report that Sunday, August 22nd. Police were reportedly dismissive at first, suggesting that Audrey was taking a little unannounced break from the demands of motherhood and life in general. But her daughters knew that couldn't be the case. Audrey may have had moments where it all caught up to her, but she wasn't going to walk out the door one afternoon and then decide to make it an overnight escape without some sort of warning or check-in.

Her daughters insisted that something was truly wrong, and so police seemed to make their first attempts to locate their mother that same day. Northfield police found Audrey's truck parked in the Montpelier commuter lot, just sitting there looking completely normal. Reports vary here, but it seems the truck was locked. One detail everyone agrees on, though, is that there were no signs that something bad had happened near or inside the vehicle, nothing that would indicate a struggle of any kind. So police left the truck right where they found it. Maybe Audrey would be back to get it soon,

and this whole thing would prove to be just a misunderstanding. For three days, Audrey's truck sat unmoved in the lot. And for three days, her daughters waited for Audrey to come home. Police followed up with other family members and friends to see if Audrey had called or seen anyone, but by Wednesday, there still wasn't any sign of her. And so police impounded her truck and started circulating her description in the media, asking anyone who may have seen the 5'6", blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman to call Northfield PD. Audrey's daughters began printing posters and distributing them across Vermont. At that point, investigators weren't even hinting at a suspicion of foul play. This was just a

mysterious disappearance. But mysterious barely covers it. Audrey's youngest daughter had a birthday coming up the following week, and she'd already bought a present. Audrey had put clothes on layaway at a local store for the girls since school was starting back up soon. She had house projects in progress and more planned. These weren't the behaviors of a woman plotting to leave her life behind voluntarily. The more likely scenario, at least as far as her family was concerned, was that Audrey didn't go away on her own. Northfield PD continued their missing person investigation, following up on a number of leads and tracking down Audrey's last known movements, including speaking with the person who last saw her that Saturday afternoon. As far as I can tell, investigators spoke with Patrick

Jarvis at least briefly after Audrey was initially reported missing. That seems to be how they knew where to find her truck in that commuter lot, but it appears a more in-depth conversation happened with Patrick a few days later. Diane Derby summarized statements by Patrick Jarvis in a 1995 story for the Rutland Herald. Patrick told police that, yes, he and Audrey went shopping together at the U Mall in South Burlington that Saturday afternoon and into the evening. He dropped Audrey off in the parking lot by 9.30, 10 o'clock-ish, and saw her walk back to her truck, get in, and start it up. But Patrick apparently left before seeing Audrey actually put the truck in gear and start driving. 10 p.m. seems kind of late, if you figure they left for the mall around 2.15 when she dropped

her daughter off. And anyway, Audrey said that she'd be home by 6.30, so what were they doing all that time? Well, according to Patrick, they actually made a few pit stops on the way home. Patrick said they grabbed a bite to eat at Wendy's and then stopped to buy beer and cigarettes before driving to Middlesex about 10 minutes past where Audrey's truck was parked in Montpelier. Patrick told police that he had a tent set up in the woods near the reservoir. They'd camped there a few times before, and so that's where they drank the beer, at least six cans each, and then had sex. And then he drove her back to her truck. At first, Patrick said he had no idea what Audrey did or where she went after he dropped her off.

But affidavits filed by State Police Sergeant Gloria Danforth say that in one version of Patrick's account of the night, Audrey told him as they arrived back at her truck that she was going to call someone for a ride because she'd been drinking. He suggested that maybe Audrey started walking to find a phone, and then who knows what happened to her after that. As far as his own activities after dropping Audrey off, though, Patrick was pretty specific. He told police he drove 20 minutes from the Montpelier parking lot back to his apartment in Barrie for a shower, and then headed out again to cruise in his car and look for women in town. Next, he says he drove 45 minutes

back to Burlington, intending to meet up with a friend, but instead decided to do some late-night fishing on the Lamoille River in Milton, which is 25 minutes away from Burlington, in the opposite direction of home. He said he stayed there until the sun came up. So Patrick was the last known person with Audrey on the night she disappeared. He owns that fact. But his story? It's a lot to dissect. Even if it sounds suspicious in any way, though, police stopped short of calling Patrick a suspect in whatever happened to Audrey, because they weren't even sure something did happen to her. Even a week later, Audrey's case remained a missing persons investigation only. By the following Friday, August 27th,

Vermont State Police had joined the effort to locate Audrey Grote. More than a dozen law enforcement officials and volunteers took to the woods around the commuter lot where her truck was found to search for clues. It's unclear exactly when they made this discovery, but according to Vermont State Police, Audrey's purse was found in some bushes near the parking lot. It didn't bode well. The possibility of foul play was getting more difficult to rule out. After 10 days, investigators were no longer fighting the worst fears surrounding Audrey Grote's disappearance. Northfield Police officially turned over the case to Vermont State Police and shifted the focus of the investigation, announcing that foul play was suspected. Now, for those first 10 days of the investigation, police never actually said the name Patrick

Jarvis in public. He was referred to only as a male friend of Audrey's, and they refused to confirm his identity further, even when family started to talk about him in the newspapers. But the day after state police took over the case, Patrick's name was everywhere, for an entirely different reason. On September 1st, 1993, less than two weeks after Audrey was reported missing, police pulled Patrick Jarvis over as he was on his way to work and placed him under arrest. During the course of the missing persons investigation, law enforcement officials learned of several incidents involving Patrick and an unidentified minor. He was charged with aggravated sexual assault of a juvenile. In court documents obtained by Diane Derby for the Rutland Herald, the victim, a 13-year-old girl, told police that Patrick had sexually assaulted her

on at least six separate occasions in August of that year. The girl also told police that Patrick brought her to his apartment on the morning of August 22nd, the same day that Audrey was reported missing. When police tracked Patrick down on August 23rd to talk to him about Audrey's disappearance, the 13-year-old girl was at his apartment then, too. Patrick had an existing criminal record, both in Vermont and out of state, including a 1990 conviction in South Carolina for lewd and lascivious behavior with a minor. He received a five-year suspended sentence for that charge, but violated his probation and was sentenced to 30 months in jail, though he only served about

a year of it before his release in 1992. His other crimes as of 1993 included reckless endangerment, possession of burglary tools, trespassing, and a simple assault charge in January of that year resulting from a bar fight. Though technically unrelated, Patrick's arraignment for the aggravated sexual assault charges was particularly illuminating as far as Audrey Grote's case goes. Prosecutors told the judge they believed that Patrick was a flight risk and asked that he be held on high bail. Washington County State's Attorney Terry Trono said to the judge, quote, I don't think it's any secret, Your Honor, that Mr. Jarvis is a suspect, end quote. It was the first time that word was used to describe Patrick Jarvis.

He was a suspect in Audrey Grote's disappearance. Patrick Jarvis entered a plea of not guilty and his bail was set at $25,000. Unable to make that bail, Patrick was held at the St. Johnsbury Correctional Facility pending trial. If convicted, the aggravated sexual assault charge carried a maximum life sentence. There's no doubt police had a lot more questions to ask Patrick. But with him in custody, it complicated things. He'd been cooperative with the investigation at the start, but according to Mike Donahue's reporting in the Burlington Free Press, Patrick had since retained a lawyer and was refusing to take a polygraph test.

And so, police were scrutinizing his statements about the night of August 21st even more intensely. His was the only version of events they had. but could his story really be trusted? After Patrick was arrested, officers canvassed University Mall in Burlington, trying to find anyone who had seen Audrey and Patrick there together on the day she disappeared, but not a single merchant or any other mall-goer recognized the photo of Audrey Grote. There were no confirmed sightings of her at the mall. But there were sightings of Patrick Jarvis. He'd apparently purchased a bottle of lubricant at a store there. When police asked him about it, he said he used it with Audrey on the night of the 21st. However, the 13-year-old girl said it was used during his assault on her.

Police also appealed to the public, wanting to hear from anyone who may have been on or near the Lamoille River fishing access in Milton on the night of August 21st and into the early morning hours of the 22nd. The Lamoille River. That's where Patrick Jarvis said he went fishing in the middle of the night after supposedly dropping Audrey off. Police boats spent multiple days on the river in search of clues, and the search expanded to cover more of the locations that Patrick claimed to be on the night Audrey disappeared.

In his initial statements, Patrick said he went from Montpelier, to the mall in Burlington, to the tent in the woods in Middlesex, back to Audrey's truck in Montpelier to drop her off, then home to Barry, and back again to Burlington, and finally to the river near Milton. So, state police brought a trained search dog to an area off Bolduc Road in Middlesex, near the tent site. But it's unclear if those efforts turned up anything significant. However, investigators weren't done with the woods and waters of the Wrightsville Reservoir yet. Something the 13-year-old girl said gave investigators even more reason to search that spot with a careful eye. According to court documents detailed in the Rutland Herald,

the 13-year-old girl told police that Patrick Jarvis brought her to a campsite in Middlesex on the morning of August 22nd, the day after Audrey was last seen alive. She said that she helped Patrick clean up empty beer containers and break down a tent. Before they left, she watched Patrick carry a shovel from the site and put it in the back of his vehicle. With that, police returned

to the campsite location with a dog trained in finding buried bodies, but nothing came of that search. Three months later, though, in November of 1993, a new tip came in about the same general area. According to Shea Totten's reporting for the Burlington Free Press, Vermont State Police received information that Audrey's remains could be found in a body of water in Middlesex, possibly the Wrightsville Reservoir near the dam, about three miles away from the previous search area. Now, this reservoir and dam has an interesting history. According to a piece by Mike Hoey for local ABC affiliate WVNY, the dam was constructed after a catastrophic flood in 1927. It was intended to slow the waters of the Winooski River as a safeguard against

future flooding events, but it also meant that the water needed to go somewhere else. The state of Vermont ended up taking private land by eminent domain for the Wrightsville Reservoir, and an entire village had to be relocated before the land was intentionally flooded to create the reservoir. That included a cemetery. In 1934, 651 graves in the North Branch Cemetery, some dating back to the 1800s, were excavated and moved to the cemetery's new and current location off Bolduc Road in Middlesex.

Anyway, on Saturday, November 6th, 1993, a dog from the New England Canine Search and Rescue Squad sniffed the woods and shoreline at the south end of the Wrightsville Reservoir. The dog's nose twitched as the wind shifted. If there was a human body in the water, the wind would carry the scent to the dog's specially trained snout. The handler followed the dog as it methodically scanned the surface. Until suddenly, the dog began to signal. Other dogs from the squad were brought in to the same spot to see if they'd signal too. Sure enough, each dog notified their handler to the scent of human remains. State police divers planned

to search the murky reservoir waters near where the dogs had signaled the following week. That Tuesday, five divers spent several hours underwater, but it was a tricky endeavor. An AP report in the Brattleboro Reformer said that the divers had to pretty much work by feel. The silty bottom was easily disturbed and visibility was almost zero. Unfortunately, the divers didn't find anything relating to Audrey Grote's disappearance during that search, and they didn't have any plans to return to the water in the near future. The investigation was ongoing back on land, though. Court records show that in the four months following the arrest of Patrick Jarvis, police obtained two search warrants for Patrick's apartment and a third for a piece of property that belonged to Patrick's mother.

But none of those searches led investigators to Audrey either. Meanwhile, Patrick Jarvis was still awaiting his day in court on the aggravated sexual assault charges. Mike Donahue reports for the Burlington Free Press that in December of 1993, Patrick ended up pleading guilty to a lesser charge as part of a deal, a single count of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child. In exchange for the lesser charge, which carried a reduced sentence of one to five years compared to possible life imprisonment, Patrick had to cooperate with the Audrey Grote investigation and take a polygraph test. However, the terms of the deal prevented disclosure of the polygraph exam results, and so we don't know if Patrick passed or failed or even what the questions were.

All the Washington County State's attorney would say is that the results were helpful to the investigation. One of the many frustrating things about this case is that the early part of the investigation was based on the statements of a man who ultimately became a suspect. You gotta wonder how much time and ground police lost knowing that the trail they first followed might not have been a real trail at all. As weeks and months passed, a fog settled over what semblance of a trail investigators had, until it was completely socked in. Mother's Day in 1994 passed, and Audrey's six daughters still didn't know where their mother was. The youngest of her girls, who had all once lived in the cozy home they built together, were split up amongst family friends who had been granted guardianship. Making an already challenging situation worse, Audrey's daughters were denied social security benefits typically paid to survivors because they couldn't furnish evidence that their mother was,

in fact, deceased. State police continued to follow up on tips through the summer of 1994, including a call in July from a man who said he pulled up what looked like a clump of red blonde human hair on his fishing line at Marshfield Pond in Marshfield. The pond was a little over 35 minutes away from Middlesex and the Wrightsville Reservoir in the opposite direction of any location Patrick Jarvis had claimed to visit on the night Audrey disappeared. But the fisherman was insistent that police come take a look for themselves. John Dillon reports for the Rutland Herald that the fisherman, a guy named Ron, had been

Audrey's landlord at one point, and he wanted to do whatever he could to help her daughters. He was certain there was something at the bottom of Marshfield Pond, but Ron said it took several phone calls over the course of a few weeks, plus a complaint to the office of the governor, before police actually showed up to search the pond. State Police Sergeant Gloria Danforth denied there was any sort of exceptional lag in their response to the tip, though. Ultimately, divers scanned the bottom of the pond more than once, to no avail. Although the hair was undoubtedly from a human, that everyone could agree on. State Police Captain Kerry Sleeper said they had no reason to believe that it was connected to Audrey's case.

Still, they had at least one more search of the area planned in order to definitively rule out the pond as a possible location of Audrey's remains. In a missing persons case, ruling out where someone isn't is just as important as determining where that person is. Investigators never did find Audrey or any other human remains in the pond. That August, the one-year anniversary of Audrey's disappearance came and went with still no answers for her family. But not for lack of trying. In addition to the numerous searches of bodies of water and wooded areas, police reportedly searched a junkyard with cadaver dogs. They worked with a forensic anthropologist to look for possible burial sites in various locations, and Crimestoppers assisted the effort with posters distributed within state penitentiaries.

And though the efforts resulted in some tips, they led nowhere. Not to Audrey, anyway. During that full year without Audrey, each of her daughters celebrated birthdays without the woman who birthed them. When Audrey's grandchild was born, there was no call or visit from a proud grandma. Saying that someone vanished without a trace is such a true crime cliche. But if it ever rang true for a case, it was this one. In an unsolved case, particularly an unsolved missing persons case, the boundaries between what we think we know and what we know for sure are murky. With a homicide investigation, at the very least, police have a body and a

possible crime scene to consider, injuries to examine that can give an idea of method and allow speculation of motive, which can then lead to possible suspects. But without Audrey or her remains, the list of things in the what we know for sure column is short. All we really know about Audrey's movements on August 21st, 1993, is that she dropped her daughter off at a family friend's house near Shady Real Road in Middlesex around 2 or 2.15pm and her truck somehow ended up at the park and ride lot off Interstate 89 in Montpelier. Everything else, the shopping trip, the tent, getting dropped off at her truck by Patrick Jarvis, the timeline of it all, those details came from Patrick himself. And he ended up a suspect who couldn't keep his story straight.

But if Patrick was such a strong suspect for Audrey's disappearance, what's the motive there? Well, the sexual assault charges that got Patrick Jarvis arrested may have been unrelated to Audrey Grote's disappearance in a technical sense,

but Audrey's family and friends believed that Patrick's criminal offenses had everything to do with why Audrey went missing. now something i haven't told you yet is that the unidentified 13 year old female victim of patrick jarvis was a relative of audrey's the source material does not identify the girl by name nor does it give a more specific familial relationship between Audrey and the girl. But according to Diane Derby's reporting, Audrey's family felt that if she found out what Patrick did, Audrey was the type of person who would have done something about it. Maybe that's what happened that Saturday afternoon. Maybe Audrey confronted Patrick about it. And maybe the confrontation escalated to the point where Audrey was never going to make it home to her kids that night.

But it was just a thread of a theory. The evidence just wasn't there to charge anyone with a crime. Patrick Jarvis was due out of prison in December of 1994. Lieutenant William O'Leary of the Vermont State Police said in an AP report by Wilson Ring that Patrick had paid his debt to society for the lewd and lascivious conduct conviction, and now investigators had to follow due process. If they had enough on Patrick to arrest him in Audrey's case, they would have done it already. Patrick walked out of prison a free man on December 20, 1994. He has never been arrested or charged with any crimes as it relates to the disappearance of Audrey Grote. In July of 1995, a man, digging around the barn on his property in Woodbury, Vermont,

unearthed the unmistakable remains of a human. Teeth, jaw, leg bones, and even hair. Cassandra Hemingway reports for the Hardwick Gazette that, when police responded to the scene, they believed it was, in fact, the scene of a crime, and possibly the burial site of the still-missing Audrey Grote. But on further examination and digging by archaeologists and anthropologists, at least two other sets of human remains were uncovered too. It seems that man had just stumbled upon a long-lost graveyard that had been part of local lore for generations.

In August of 1996, police acted on a tip that suggested Audrey Grote might be buried near a picnic area off Shady Real Road, not far from where she dropped her daughter off at a friend's house on the last day she was seen alive. Diane Derby reports for the Rutland Herald that the tip was actually a few years old, but police didn't think it was related to Audrey's disappearance at the time, and so they didn't follow up on it until later. But I guess neighbors told police they were concerned when a man said he was burying a dog in that wooded area,

but then they saw him lowering a box much larger than necessary for a dog into the ground. However, excavation of that site in 1996 confirmed that it was the body of a dog after all. Another tip, another location ruled out. The following month, Audrey's daughters achieved a somber win in court, though I'm not sure you could ever call this a true win for anyone. Typically, seven years are required for a presumption of death in a missing persons case, but just over three years after Audrey disappeared,

a superior court judge ordered the state medical examiner to issue a death certificate for Audrey Grote. The decision meant Audrey's girls could finally collect the survivor benefits they were due from Social Security. In the court proceedings leading up to that decision, the pro bono attorney representing Audrey's daughters, Gary McQueston, had called Patrick Jarvis to testify about Audrey's disappearance. Patrick refused and pleaded the fifth, claiming his right against self-incrimination. The biggest developments in the years that followed included a Crimestoppers reenactment, which aired on local television in 1997. At the time, investigators still called Audrey's case open and active, but they seemed to lack any confidence in their ability to close the case without a body

or a confession. They still didn't have either. Audrey's daughters held a memorial service for their mother in a Connecticut cemetery in 1998. That's where she was born. Though it was a day to remember their mom, Audrey's daughters, several of whom had become mothers themselves in the previous five years, they also reflected on their lingering frustrations with police. One daughter told Diane Derby, quote, I think if they actually did their job and looked at everybody from every perspective, I think they would have come to an end with all of this, end quote. Attorney Gary McQuiston had remained invested in the case alongside the Daughters even after the Social Security Benefits case was decided. He couldn't believe more hadn't been done to find answers either, and he wondered why investigators didn't call for an inquest. An inquest would

compel witnesses to answer questions under oath in front of a judge. It was a rare legal avenue, but Gary felt it was something worth a shot. But there was no inquest, no arrests, no nothing for several more years. But then in 2001, in a major move that seemed like it came out of nowhere, investigators intended to either rule in or rule out a tip in Audrey's case that had resurfaced over and over since the earliest days of the search. David Smith writes for the Times Argus that Vermont State Police didn't have any new leads that led them to their decision, but they just needed to rule out once and for all that Audrey Grote's remains were not at the bottom of the Wrightsville Reservoir. After several fruitless dives in the muck and mire of the reservoir waters in the previous eight years, investigators decided the only way to know for sure that Audrey was or wasn't in there

was to drain it out. Because of the environmental impacts, it actually took several requests by state police to get permission to carry out the plan. But once it was finally approved, the methodical process began in November of 2001. Water was drained from the popular recreational area at a rate of one foot per day. It wouldn't be completely dry, but the intention was to get the water to a low point so that only a 53-acre pond remained, just enough to maintain the wildlife habitat but dramatically reduce the search area. For two days, investigators, cadaver dogs, and other state police officials

searched what was left of the water, but there was nothing to be found. It wasn't a failure in the eyes of the investigation, though. Again, ruling out locations was just as important as ruling them in, and it seems they could finally cross the Wrightsville Reservoir off the list. This investigation is one big process of elimination, and so far, nothing has led police to Audrey Grote. Not a discovery of human remains in 2002 when a hunter found bones buried in a shallow grave off Berlin Pond Road in Northfield, the town where Audrey was living when she disappeared. Stephen Mills reports for the Rutland Herald that investigators believed the remains had been there for at least a year, but not more

than three years, and so the timeline didn't match Audrey Grote's disappearance. In 2009, a new tip received the previous fall had police returning to the woods near the commuter lot where Audrey's truck was found 16 years earlier. Thatcher Motes reports for the Rutland Herald that the specific section of woods hadn't been searched before, and so once the snow melted, investigators were out there looking for any clues or evidence. But at risk of sounding like a broken record, again, the search didn't uncover anything helpful to Audrey's case. The most recent update I've seen in the investigation was over 10 years ago. According to Peter Hirschfeld's reporting for the Rutland Herald, a contractor digging with

an excavator at a job site off Clark Road in Northfield unearthed what was believed to be a fragment of a human skull. The bone fragments were sent to an FBI lab for analysis, but at the time, Northfield police were quick to dismiss the possibility that they belonged to Audrey. Estimates suggest the bones were over 50 years old. The case listing on the Vermont State Police website indicates they, too, have ruled out the possibility of the skull fragment belonging to Audrey. And if we're speaking about the process of elimination, then we need to talk about Patrick Jarvis once again. What I'm about to tell you might put you into a spiral. I don't know why, and I don't know specifically when or how, but between the discovery of human remains in 2002

and the renewed search near the parking lot in 2009, police told Burlington Free Press writer Sam Hemingway that Patrick, who was once a prime suspect in Audrey Grote's disappearance and the only suspect ever publicly identified, was no longer viewed as a suspect. Since this is kind of a big detail, I contacted Lieutenant John McCallum with Vermont State Police to confirm it. He's listed on the Vermont Cold Case website. He forwarded my question to Detective Sergeant Matt Nadeau in the Berlin barracks, who called me back a few days later. Detective Sergeant Nadeau told me that he wasn't sure how they did things back in the 90s, but nowadays, since Audrey Grote is still just considered a missing person, and investigators still have not determined that a crime has even been committed in her case, his official statement was that they do not have any suspects,

and therefore, they haven't ruled any suspects out. He was willing to chalk up those comments from a previous investigator about Patrick Jarvis no longer being considered as a suspect to things just getting lost in translation, essentially. That's the best answer he could give me, for now. It has now been over three decades since Audrey Grote was last seen by the people who love her most. Each year, her daughters reflect on the special moments they lost with their mother. Birthdays, holidays, seeing her girls grow up

and become loving mothers themselves. They never got to finish the house, a labor of love they started together. One of Audrey's daughters picked up where they left off though, and she was able to move into the house a few years later. She told Diane Derby,

quote, I've dealt with the fact that my mother is probably never going to return. It's not something I want to think about, but I can deal with it. End quote. Another of Audrey's daughters told Sam Hemingway of the Burlington Free Press in 2006, quote, Part of me holds on to hope she's out there somewhere, because I know my mom would never have walked away from us.

Never. End quote. The earliest information Patrick Jarvis gave police that they were going shopping and Audrey parked her truck in the commuter lot, that had been considered fact in this case at the start. But all we really know for sure is that Audrey dropped her daughter off

at a friend's house off Shady Railroad in Middlesex around 2 or 2.15 on the afternoon of Saturday, August 21st, 1993. What happened next is exactly what investigators have been trying to uncover for over 30 years. So, if you have any information relating to the disappearance of Audrey Grote, please contact Vermont State Police Lieutenant John McCallum. His email is in the show description of this episode. Or you can submit an anonymous tip by texting VTIPS to 274-637. Thank you for listening to Dark Down East. You can find all source material for this case at darkdowneast.com. Be sure to follow the show on Instagram at darkdowneast.

This platform is for the families and friends who have lost their loved ones, and for those who are still searching for answers. I'm not about to let those names or their stories get lost with time. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is Dark Down East. Dark Down East is a production of Kylie Media and Audiocheck. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?